The Solarion Project - Update

Hey all!

It's been a while since I updated, and I wanted to fill you guys in on what's happening and what you can expect going forward.

So with that I'm excited to announcement that there will be a playable demo released within the next 30 days! I'm actually really far ahead with it to the point I'm mainly just waiting for animations to be done and a few bug fixes need to be done too.

Now I know you could be asking "Well why don't you just release it now?", and that's valid, though my vision for this demo is to give you an example of what to expect if the The Solarion Project reached a certain level of funding. So there will be animations for the first scene, there is voice acting (or moan/breath acting? xD) to accompany the scene. As well as some good music, and sleek UI. 

I want to show off what is possible if people are willing to back and support the project to the higher tiers. And I want to make it clear now that if we don't reach those higher levels then the extra features I envisage the game having (such as animations and voice acting) won't be available. (Unfortunately I've already put A LOT of personal funds into this project so far.) 

Why a demo?

Well the demo is mainly going to be there for a couple reasons. Firstly, it's actually going to be a large beta test. I want to make sure all the systems I've built work for everyone (or as many people as possible) and it will be good to get it thoroughly tested now while it's still in the early stages of development. 

Second, is to show off the features of The Solarion Project, and what will set it apart from other games, but still give you the (warm) feeling (in your pants) that you expect from playing an adult game. Each feature added has been done for a specific purpose to aid either the story development, character development or just adding sexiness. There are no game mechanics that are there "just because it's a game and we need some game mechanics."

And the final reason is of course to get some early feedback. What you guys like, what you dislike, what changes can be made, and any ideas you have. 

What to expect from the demo:

As I said the main focus is on the above points, this means the amount of content (in terms of sex scenes) is going to be reduced to just one with The Red Queen. There are many more scenes already developed and waiting to go, but they of course require character development and story build up for the player to unlock and I don't want to rush these in for the demo.

Additionally I didn't want to add in non-animated scenes into the demo. As the point is to demonstrate what I'd like this to look like if it were fully funded. That said, for the first 0.1 build (real beta build), there will be scenes and Patrons will vote for which characters will get developed first!

The main point is, the majority of work so far has been on the game mechanics and systems. I wanted to get this right, at the start, to stop potential bugs further down the line as well as making sure they are fit for purpose. Now that these are done though, the focus going forward will be on character development and story development! So the 0.1 build will feature progression for at least 2 of the crew members.

I played through the majority of it today, and I estimate it will be about 45 minutes long if you decide to read through everything.

What systems / mechanics have been done?

Galaxy Map Travel:

So in the previous video I demonstrated a sort of galaxy travel system. Well this was re-written from the ground up. Mainly for the ease of implementation. Instead of building each solar system as a separate scene, I instead have all the solar systems loaded into data ready to be read and displayed correctly in one scene. 

There are systems (where you can warp to other systems and visits the planet in that system) and clusters which house the systems. You travel to a new cluster by getting to the wormhole gate (a la Mass Effect). 

Currently there are 234 planets in the game, but most need slight tweaking in terms of size and location (very simple changes though!) and all are in need of a decent description!

Point and Click Travel:

As demonstrated in a previous video there is a point style system when you arrive onto a planet (or your ship). Where you interact with objects and travel between locations. This is relatively the same as it was in the video, with some nice adjustments / bug fixes. So characters actually display at their appropriate height, and the busts should scale down to your device. 

I'm hoping to make the game work on as many devices as possible, but this will likely be a challenge!

Random Event System:

This is one of the reasons for adding in the galaxy map travel system! I love sci fi games that spawn random events as you travel (like Out There and FTL). My plan is to create a crap tonne of random events that aid in story telling and character development (as well as some fun / creepy ideas to add extra depth!) I like the idea of adding more little things to get a real sense of how the characters think and feel about certain situations and events. So although there are few to begin with, expect a lot more as time goes on!

Objective Tracker:

This is something I want to get right from the beginning. Other games I worked on before had a quest system that I think people found useful, but it could definitely have done with some improvements. I've decided to not only add a journal system, but also have an objective marker that shows on the galaxy map so you at least know where you need to go in order to get to the next part. Hopefully getting stuck will be a thing of the past!

(Side note: Getting this to work was a fucking difficult piece to code, mainly the logic of recursively trying to figure the quickest route to get to a certain planet, in a different system within a different cluster. But it works and it's fucking cool I managed to do it!)

Animation Player:

Even though we are quite some distance from the animation goal being reached I still wanted to make sure I got this right. The previous one I built on another project was fine, but I wanted to do something MORE with this.

And I'm very happy with the result! So to break it down. There is a slider which changes the speed of the animation, so the player always has control over the speed of the scene. And the variance is much greater than a simple Speed = number between 1 and 5 kind of thing. Noises (including breaths and moans) are dependent on the speed of the animation too. The higher speed, the more intense the moaning and other sounds. 

There is also an angle change button, which allows the player to switch between views of the scene. (Going from a first person view to a side view for example.) And of course the player controls when the climax happens too with a simple click of the button! I think people will like it and the flexibility it has! Climax moans are also dependent on speed at the time the climax button is pressed. If you are going at a slow speed, you get a gentler sounding climax, but going at top speed you get the much more intense sounding climax. 

Also now seems like a good time to thank PixieWillow for her super quick turn around and really professional output! I hope to work with her again very soon! 

Encounter / Battle System:

This is here mainly to provide a "threat" while navigating the galaxy. At the moment there will simply be an "avoidance" system, where you avoid enemy ships / baddies that may or may not pursue you. However in the future I hope to flesh this out into a full turn based battle system where you place the location of your crew members into different parts of the ship and try and take out the enemy ship(s). You'll be making decisions for each crew member, who may or may not follow your orders and trying your best to take minimal damage while delivering fatal blows to the enemy.

Music Manager:

Just to help set the mood! What's a good game without some fitting music?

UI / Menus:

I wanted to get this right pretty early on, so I invested in to getting some UIs and looked around for ideas. I'm quite happy with the UI for the galaxy map and the menus are definitely getting there. More improvements will be made as time goes on!

This all sounds good - so what's next?

Next? Well next is the demo! As I said hopefully released in the next 30 days or so, depending on animation completion times and such. I'll be adding the first dialogue options for each crew member as well, really fleshing out each character so that $5+ patrons can begin voting right away for their favourites and will we focus on them first.

The demo will be available to all $10+ members first, before being released to all patrons 2 weeks later and then finally being made public 2 weeks after that, which is likely how the development / patreon reward cycle will look going forward. 

I've also made a short video showing off some of the work done so far that is available to all patrons, but be aware there are some minor story spoilers in there (very minor though!) So they get a first glimpse at all the hardwork the past 3/4 weeks I've put into the project. 

I'll make everyone aware when the demo has gone into alpha testing and I will be updating a lot more frequently now that the ball has really started moving on this project. Which leads nicely to...

What about after the demo?

I plan on releasing a new build monthly, hopefully progressing 2 characters at a time, but if not at least 1. It's dependent on time I am allowed to work on this project. (Again one of the other goals is for me to go full time at which point we really ramp up the tempo!) But I believe that 1 character progression will always be doable. The important thing is I do not want to rush this though. I don't want to write boring or repetitive or crappy progression that is just there for the sake of it to unlock a scene.

My main goal with the project is - I want you to CARE about the characters. I want you to have favourites, "waifus" or however you want to put it. They will have interesting personalities and backstories and I really want this to come across in their progressions. As I've said before, if you're the kind of person that likes to whiz through the text, not reading anything just to get to the scenes, then this may not be the game for you. 

The majority of effort is going into the writing and accompanying artwork for the progressions, rather than a crap tonne of sex scenes with little build up. Which I know is a different approach than other projects I have worked on in the past, but it's more in line with how I want to work.

Anywho, I think I've rambled enough here! But as you can hopefully tell, I'm SUPER excited about this project. I have been working super hard and I don't want to say it's been easy, but the motivation and energy has been there (even though it's getting darker and shitty weather). I feel more like my old self than I have done in a long time and I hope the results of this demo and future builds will highlight that!

I really can't wait for you guys to see the demo and can't wait to hear your thoughts (positive and negative) about it!

Until next time though!

 - Nergal